Roadside St.11: ‘It’s good to talk,’ the advertising campaign for British Telecom used to say. With that in mind, before the Assisi roll out we grabbed hold of the DS’s of the red and pink jerseys to get their take on the race so far.

GreenEdge’s Matt White is the man behind Matt Goss’s grip on rosso.

‘We’ve had a great start, the objective was to win a stage, and we’ve done that.

Now, we’re taking defending the jersey day by day.

Matt’s recovered from that crash in Frosinone; Pippo rode into him, but I heard that Pippo said that Kristoff rode into him . . .

The team time trial was a little disappointing for us in terms of where we finished, but we were only seconds away from third spot.

I’m a little surprised at how savagely the race has started.

Rodriguez is the strongest rider in the race just now, but the usual suspects – Basso, Scarponi and Kreuziger have all been low key.

Garmin set themselves the object of getting the jersey and holding on to it – and they certainly did that.

But the last week is very hard and that’s when it’ll be decided.

I think that Pozzovivo will be a strong contender, given the way he’s riding and that the last time trial is relatively short.

However, as far as we’re concerned, we brought a young team here and I’m happy with how they’ve gelled and how they’re riding.’

Valerio Piva is the man in the Katusha car; we started by asking him if Rodriguez could sustain his frantic pace?

‘That’s a good question!

In the past, perhaps not.

We’re not expecting overall victory but a podium is or secondary objective and failing that, a top ten.

But for now we have a victory and the maglia rosa – it’s better to come away from the race with that, than to sit and wait and perhaps come away from the race with nothing.

The jersey and stage win give morale to the team and to Joaquin.

The big favourites have still to show and I think it is an open Giro – but we’ll just take it day by day.

Joaquin is a specialist on the short, steep climbs but in the last week it will be longer climbs where Basso and Scarponi will be to the fore.

You must remember that they have both won the Giro and have great experience.

But we have good riders around Joaquin and we have 40 or 50 seconds on the favourites, so it’s up to them to attack us.’

We asked Valerio how he was finding thing at Katusha, after his tenure with HTC.

‘It’s an international squad, we have riders from Spain, Russia, Norway, Latvia . .

It was like that at High Road and most of the big Pro Tour teams are the same.

What I have tried to bring to this squad is the importance of the group – the staff, the riders all believing in the team and having pride in the team.

Yesterday was a good example, the whole team worked towards Joaquin’s victory.’

It’s a good job we spoke to Matt and Valerio because there was precious little to write about for the first 50 K of the race’s longest stage, 255 K.